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Sol Blade
The Sol Blade is a Long Sword-class weapon Artifact available in both Golden Sun: The Lost Age and Golden Sun: Dark Dawn, and is one of the strongest weapons in the series. Basic Description The Lost Age In The Lost Age, it is found in a treasure chest deep in Mars Lighthouse, as a rather easy reward for solving a platform-based ice puzzle shortly before a boss battle with the Flame Dragons, and in Dark Dawn it is found near the end of the final dungeon, the Temple of Apollo, where it is actually required to progress towards the final boss and some of the other super dungeons in the game. In Dark Dawn, it is obtained shortly before the final boss battles. This Long Sword-class weapon is unique in that only Isaac and Felix can wield it in The Lost Age, while only Matthew can wield it in Dark Dawn. Its buy value is 31,200 coins and its sell value is 23,400. The Sol Blade increases the wielder's Attack by 200 points. Its Unleash effect is Megiddo (the location of Armageddon), with the standard base activation rate of 35%, which is a physical attack whose resulting damage is either increased or decreased based on how the user's Venus power measures against the target's Venus resistance, and then the resulting damage there is multiplied by three, an extremely powerful and consistent effect. Possibly the most visually elaborate of all Unleash effects, the user leaps high into the air, the sword glowing bright red over his head. He then slams the blade of the sword into a great sphere of burning plasma that is summoned off the top of the screen (this could be said to represent a star such as the Sun itself), and slings the searing object onto the target. This is the same in Dark Dawn: however, like every other Artifact in the game, the Sol Blade gets an additional Unleash called Purgatory (the same Unleash of the Fire Brand in the Lost Age), as well as the Unleashes Centurion and Radiant Fire. Infinite Sol Blades in Air's Rock Using the Retreat glitch, there is a way to obtain infinite copies of the Sol Blade inside Air's Rock. This glitch was found by TL_Plexa in 2017. Youtube link Step 1: Set the front entrance of the Air's Rock core (the door inaccessible until coming from inside and moving the log) as your Retreat point. Step 2: Walk to the psynergy stone on the Yellow 1 floor. Step 3. Trigger the Retreat glitch. This involves setting Retreat as a shortcut and attempting to cast it when Felix does not have enough PP. Step 4: Examine the stone. It should be a Sol Blade. Dark Dawn In Dark Dawn, the Sol Blade is found in the final area of the game at Apollo Sanctum; after using the Colored Orbs on their respective pedestals and the Apollo Lens starts to get set up, players are to proceed south of the topmost part of the screen to where the Sol Blade is in the ground, and Matthew will draw it out of the ground and obtain it, which will activate another part of the area's puzzle. The Sol Blade is especially unique among the game's weapons because it has a utility Use effect in the field as well: it doubles as a key that opens special locked doors like the one now at the bottom part of the screen. Following the final dungeon, players may return to Otka Island and Burning Island Cave and open doors with the Sol Blade to access the Ancient Devil and Ogre Titan optional boss battles. The Sol Blade and its Megiddo unleash are the same as in The Lost Age, with Matthew being the only one that can wield it, but now Megiddo is the fourth and final of the several Unleashes the sword may randomly choose from when an Unleash with the Sol Blade is triggered. Like with all other weapons, several other Unleashes have been added: the first Unleash is Centurion, otherwise only found as the strongest Unleash of the Phaeton's Blade and Levatine, which is a Jupiter-aligned attack equal to the user's normal physical attack multiplied by 2.4, and there is a chance that the resultant attack will ignore 50% of the target's Defense. The second Unleash is Radiant Fire, otherwise only found as the exclusive theme Unleash of the Levatine, which is a Mars-aligned attack equal to the user's normal physical attack with 66 damage points added to the result, and each foe adjacent to the target is also hit - so that up to 3 foes can be hit. Each hit foe also has a chance to have 50% of their Defense be ignored by the hit. Its third Unleash is Purgatory, otherwise only found as the theme Unleash of the Fire Brand, which is a Mars-aligned attack equal to the user's normal physical attack with 67 damage points added to the result and a chance to inflict Sleep. Analysis The Lost Age The Sol Blade is by far the most powerful weapon in the game. Its base attack of 200 is second only to a Darksword at 210, but as that weapon's Venus-based Unleash does not multiply damage, it does not compare to the Sol Blade in the long run. Its only competition among other weapons are the Masamune, Excalibur and Tisiphone Edge, all weapons that have Unleash effects that have the potential to multiply the damage done; while Excalibur and Tisiphone Edge may triple the damage done, the Sol Blade's Megiddo always scores triple damage, so it will always end up being in the player's inventory by the game's end because of its extreme power. A less significant advantage the Sol Blade has is that it is found in a chest, rather than as a random drop or forge, making it much more available over Excalibur or Tisiphone Edge. To maximize the weapon's power, you can equip on an Adept a specific weapon setup that will increase the chance the weapon will Unleash Megiddo whenever its wielder launches a physical attack: The Sol Blade itself Unleashes Megiddo with a base rate of 35%. The Venus Adept can equip the Valkyrie Mail to add 20% to the Unleash rate to make it 55%. Then he can equip Riot Gloves to increase it by 20% more (as well as increase attack power somewhat), then equip a Mythril Helm to increase it by 12% more, and finally Hyper Boots to increase it by 12% more to make for an Adept that has a 99% chance of Unleashing Megiddo every time he attacks. This character becomes a complete powerhouse warrior that will help the party defeat the Doom Dragon final boss much quicker than otherwise and can fell most common enemies in one hit. It is also worth noting that the Mythril Helm could be replaced with the Warrior's Helm due to its similar effect and increase in Venus power, complementing Megiddo's affinity, but should be noted that the Warrior's Helm possesses a noticeably smaller Defense rating than the Mythril Helm, as well as a marginally smaller 10% Critical increase. The Venus power increase is only a mere 10 points as well, so the player might want to think quite carefully before deciding whether or not they may desire to replace the Mythril Helm with the Warrior's Helm. Dark Dawn The Sol Blade in Dark Dawn is still the best weapon overall, but the additional lesser unleashes that it carries in addition to Megiddo end up making it a less reliably super-powered weapon. Its first unleash, Centurion, ends up close to the power of Megiddo because it has its own high damage multiplier and the chance to deal further damage by ignoring part of the target's Defense, but its Jupiter power is misaligned with Matthew's. Radiant Fire is less powerful because it only adds damage to the result (66), but it at least has a different kind of use by hitting multiple enemies at a time. Easily the poorest Unleash in Sol Blade's repertoire is Purgatory, which adds the same amount of damage as Radiant Fire and only adds a chance to inflict the Sleep status condition—no chance to ignore enemy Defense, and no capacity to hit multiple foes at a time. Notably, unlike Megiddo, all three of these earlier Unleashes have elemental affinities that do not match Matthew's Venus power rating. Like in The Lost Age, equipment exists that together raise Matthew's Unleash rate with the Sol Blade for nearly guaranteed unleashes: the Warrior's Helm found in Teppe Ruins, the Valkyrie Mail found in Apollo Ascent, the Aegis Shield found in Warrior's Hill, the Ninja Sandals found through the sidequest involving the Grandmother's Gift and Grandchild's Gift, and the Lord Sun's Ring found in Tonfon. But unlike in The Lost Age, none of these items require random drops or forging, meaning that it's easier to max out the Unleash rate. This does not, however, have any effect on which Unleash is chosen. There are a couple strategies to consider when bringing the Sol Blade to the final battles: Setting Mars Djinn on Matthew to put him in the Chaos Lord class is ideal because Chaos Lord has a more powerful attack statistic than the Slayer class to begin with, and the Chaos Lord's other stats are either at the same level or higher than the Slayer class as well. Even though there are less Venus Djinn set to increase Matthew's Venus Power and therefore the resultant damage of Megiddo, the sharply increased Attack rating will more than make up for that deficiency anyway, increasing the damage of Megiddo and the other three unleashes as well. The two Mars-based unleashes will be especially improved, in relative terms, because of the increase to Mars Power that the set Mars Djinn themselves will also provide. The other, more subtle strategy concerns a way to manipulate what the weapon will unleash: Like with any newly acquired weapon, Matthew would not be able to use any of its Unleashes until he has attacked plenty of enemies like the Tua Warriors at the Apollo Lens with it, unless he has already trained a lot in earlier Long Swords like the Fire Brand, in which case he may already know the first Unleash or two. However, since the first Unleash, Centurion, is clearly superior to the two Mars Unleashes that follow, then if Matthew knows only Centurion on the Sol Blade, have him use Psynergy to battle until the final battles so that his Sol Blade weapon mastery is kept from rising further. This way, he can then unleash a reliably powerful Centurion each time he attacks, and this will work for a while until Radiant Fire is learned. .]] Trivia *In the code for the original Golden Sun, there exists the Sol Blade, including its item icon and its status as a Long Sword-class weapon artifact. During development the Sol Blade was apparently originally planned to be the game's "ultimate weapon", but was reserved for an appearance in the sequel and remains normally inaccessible to players of the first game without a hacking device that either grants the weapon directly or grants access to the game's Debug Room, where it can also be acquired. The Sol Blade in this incarnation has "???" as its item description and has no Unleash coded for it; it is merely a weapon artifact that increases base attack by 138, which is technically the highest attack rating increase in the original Golden Sun more than the "proper" recipient of that honor, the Gaia Blade's 135 Attack power. If this version of the Sol Blade is present in the party's inventory when the Golden Sun game file is saved as a Clear Data file, and the file data is transferred over to The Lost Age, the Sol Blade becomes its properly working, full-powered, Megiddo-unleashing self. Etymology Megiddo is a tell in northern Israel, known for its historical, geographical, and theological importance, especially under its Greek name Armageddon. The Book of Revelation mentions an apocalyptic battle at Armageddon, a name derived from the Hebrew "Har Megiddo" meaning "Mount of Megiddo". "Armageddon" has become a byword for the end of the world. Category:Artifacts Category:Venus-based Unleash effects Category:Mars-based Unleash effects Category:Jupiter-based Unleash effects Category:Damage-multiplying effects Category:Unique items in Dark Dawn Category:Weapons with four Unleashes